Design and analysis of a 32 × 5 Gbps passive optical network employing FSO based protection at the distribution level☆

A cost efficient and reliable single mode fiber and free space optics based hybrid 32 × 5 Gbps ultra dense wavelength division multiplexed-passive optical network architecture employing optical comb and polarization multiplexing is proposed. The proposed architecture is a step forward towards shifting the next generation wireless network traffic over existing passive optical network to achieve the optimum bandwidth, capacity, quality of service and cost efficiency for mobile subscribers. Self-restorable passive optical networks having fiber based feeder and distribution paths are widely researched in various studies in the past. However, to the best of our knowledge, a self-restorable passive optical network architecture employing free space optics based protection path has not been proposed so-far. The effect of varying polarization mode dispersion from 0.02 to 0.06 ps . km - 0.5 and the refractive index structure parameter of the Gamma-Gamma channel model from 5 × 10 - 16 to 5 × 10 - 12 m - 2 / 3 is evaluated. A techno-economic performance analysis of the architecture for downstream is performed by considering both the distribution and protection paths. It has been shown that the receiver sensitivity for a polarization mode dispersion of 0.06 ps . km - 0.5 is around - 22 dBm and for strong turbulence is around - 20 dBm .